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Hariri murder: Woman held in Brazil
Brazilian police have arrested a Lebanese woman wanted for bank fraud and suspected of links to the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, officials said. Acting on an anonymous tip, police arrested Rana Abdel Rahim Koleilat, 39, on Sunday at the Parthenon Accor Hotel in Brazil's Sao Paulo city, police inspector Nicanor Nogueira Branco said in an official statement. Koleilat, who was carrying a false passport identifying her as Rana Klailat of Northern Ireland, offered police up to 200,000 Brazilian reals ($94,000) to release her and was arrested for attempted bribery, the police statement said.
"Faith, an' yez don't look Oirish, lass!... $94,000 to let yez flit? Why, I don't think so, lass!"
The Lebanese consul general in Sao Paulo, Joseph Sayah, said Koleilat was wanted in Lebanon for bank fraud and for questioning by the Independent International Investigation Commission in relation to the truck bombing that killed al-Hariri and 20 other people in central Beirut in February 2005, according to police. "Her questioning is vital to clarify" al-Hariri's assassination, Branco said in the statement.

The commission was created by the UN Security Council in April 2005, soon after al-Hariri's killing. Brazilian authorities were consulting British officials to determine whether Koleilat's passport was legitimate, Branco said. The passport said it had been issued in the Lebanese capital of Beirut by the British Embassy there in 2002, and listed Koleilat as a "British Overseas Citizen".
Posted by: Fred 2006-03-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=145382